A recovery effort commenced this weekend to collect the pieces of a broken Vineyard Wind turbine that snapped off and sunk to the ocean floor this summer.

GE Vernova, the manufacturer of the blade that doubled over in July and poured down into the sea, had vessels at the malfunctioning turbine Sunday with the goal of retrieving the large pieces of the 305-foot blade, according to the town of Nantucket. 

The town, which has been providing regular updates on its communications with GE Vernova, said a first piece of debris was successfully lifted and no pieces broke off. The recovery was expected to continue Tuesday and a vessel was going to be on standby to collect any debris that floated away. 

The broken turbine is about 20 miles away from the Vineyard, at the southernmost point in Vineyard Wind’s lease. The water depth is between 120 and 160 feet. 

GE Vernova Tuesday said it had done a survey of the seabed in August and was following a plan it had previously outlined to officials. 

The company had hired Resolve Marine, a salvage outfit that worked on the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, to aid in the plan. Officials previously said they would review ultrasound photos of the blades and internally reinspect the blades, but the company did not go into detail about the seabed recovery.  

“There are multiple components of this plan, and our teams continue to focus on prioritizing safety and quality in collaboration with our customer and all relevant authorities as we execute the Action plan,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.

Vineyard Wind declined to comment on the restoration, referring further questions to GE Vernova. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the federal agency that oversees offshore wind energy projects, said Tuesday that it is continuing its investigation but referred the Gazette to GE Vernova for details on the cleanup. 

The project, which hopes to have 62 wind turbines spinning off the Vineyard’s southern shore, started producing power from a handful of turbines in February this year, but had to stop once the blade broke. GE Vernova said the problem in the broken blade was due to “insufficient bonding” that should have been caught in the quality assurance program.”

The company did not respond to a query asking whether any other blades planned for the project had been found to have defects. 

BSEE allowed construction to resume in July, though blade work is still on hold. 

The broken blade caused thousands of pieces of fiberglass and styrofoam to go into the ocean. While some of the debris washed up on the Vineyard, a majority showed up on Nantucket beaches, galvanizing the neighboring island. 

Last week, the town said it was hiring a nationally recognized damages expert to evaluate the short-, medium-, and long-term effects on the Nantucket environment and economy and would demand compensation for the failure. 

“Our goal remains to protect Nantucket’s irreplaceable historic and environmental landscapes,” Brooke Mohr, the chair of the Nantucket select board, wrote in a letter posted on the town website. “If and when these future farms are constructed and eventually decommissioned, we want to be sure the government and companies responsible have the capacity to ensure we are not harmed.”